{"id":148722,"date":"2025-08-14T14:12:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T19:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldtribune.com\/?p=148722"},"modified":"2025-08-14T14:12:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T19:12:20","slug":"backed-by-federal-judges-and-the-fec-google-continues-to-block-gop-emails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/backed-by-federal-judges-and-the-fec-google-continues-to-block-gop-emails\/","title":{"rendered":"Backed by federal judges and the FEC, Google continues to block GOP emails"},"content":{"rendered":"

Analysis by<\/em><\/span> WorldTribune<\/strong> Staff<\/em><\/span><\/span>, August 14, 2025 <\/em>Real World News<\/span><\/a>
\n<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Google is continuing its practice of flagging fundraising emails for Republicans as “dangerous” spam while leaving solicitations for Democrats untouched, a GOP consulting firm said.<\/p>\n

If true, is this legal for a massive company that is also a federal contractor?<\/p>\n

Google LLC has been hit with lawsuits in recent years over the allegedly partisan practice. But with a market cap<\/span><\/a> larger than the GDP of South Korea or Australia, such could be compared to a “butterfly’s belch,” to quote the late New York City talk show host Barry Farber<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Last year, a federal judge tossed a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee (RNC) that complained of biased email filtering.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the Federal Election Commission dismissed an RNC complaint alleging discrimination in Gmail\u2019s spam filters.<\/p>\n

Targeted Victory \u2013 whose clients include the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Rep. Steve Scalise, and Sen. Marsha Blackburn \u2013 said it found the \u201cserious and troubling\u201d trend was still going on as recently as June and July of this year.<\/p>\n

Gmail has been flagging emails containing links to the fundraising platform WinRed and \u201cin many cases, sending them directly to spam,\u201d according to a copy of a memo to clients that was obtained by the New York Post.<\/p>\n

Targeted Victory reported that it conducted tests in which emails containing links to the Democrat fundraising platform ActBlue were delivered without issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Gmail is allowed to quietly suppress WinRed links while giving ActBlue a free pass, it will continue to tilt the playing field in ways that voters never see, but campaigns will feel every single day,\u201d the memo said.<\/p>\n

Targeted Victory’s tests involved sending identical emails through Gmail, with the only difference being that one contained a WinRed donation link and the other contained an ActBlue link.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only difference between the two emails was the link,\u201d the memo said. \u201cActBlue delivered. WinRed got flagged. That is not a coincidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis held true even for major accounts, including Trump and Elise Stefanik links, compared to DNC links.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis should alarm every campaign and committee that relies on email to connect with voters,\u201d the memo said.<\/p>\n

Google was accused by Elon Musk in March of interfering \u201cto help Democrats thousands of times every election season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics including President Donald Trump have accused Google of manipulating search results to hurt Republicans and even of suppressing information of the assassination attempt against Trump last year.<\/p>\n

Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda told The Post that the company\u2019s \u201cemail filter protections are in place to keep our users safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey look at a variety of signals \u2013 like whether a user has previously marked an email as spam \u2013 and apply equally to all senders, regardless of political ideology,\u201d Castaneda claimed.<\/p>\n

A 2022 study by researchers at North Carolina State University found that Gmail flagged 59% more Republican fundraising emails as spam than Democrat ones during the leadup to the 2020 presidential election.<\/p>\n

\n

Beat The Press <\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, August 14, 2025 Real World News Google is continuing its practice of flagging fundraising emails for Republicans as “dangerous” spam while leaving solicitations for Democrats untouched, a GOP consulting firm said. If true, is this legal for a massive company that is also a federal contractor? Google LLC has been hit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":148723,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[277,3,9,10,16,12,5],"tags":[400,401,6],"class_list":["post-148722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-big-tech-watch","category-exclusives","category-rest-of-the-best","category-top-stories","category-u-s-politics","category-world-links","category-world-tribune","tag-backed-by-federal-judges-and-the-fec","tag-google-continues-to-block-gop-emails","tag-worldtribune-com","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148722\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldtribune.com\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}